At Last
by Renn Ireigh
Summary: A unique take on a traditional topic. Fear and love dance and intertwine and finally...


DISCLAIMER: Kyuuketsuki Miyu is the property of Kakinouchi Narumi.  The song included, "Save The Best For Last," belongs to Vanessa Williams.

NOTES: I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who reviewed my previous two fics in this section, especially those who didn't leave an e-mail address with which I might contact them.  I'm still trying to get on my feet in this section, while writing for something I don't yet understand in its entirety, and your comments have helped me to gain the confidence to reach that goal.  Thanks, everyone. 

At Last

Renn Ireigh

Irregularities are a part of life, and so I was equipped to deal with them just as she was.  But it was the irregularity that was so unexpected that caught us both off guard and forced us to revise our ideas of exactly what life meant and love meant and what they were – we were – together, and everything else aside - that was what had surprised me most.

Jealousy, too, is a part of life, just as all other emotions,  but jealousy is stronger because it provokes hatred – the strongest emotion of all next to love, because hatred and love are quite similar, though at first glance they seem opposites.  It was jealousy I felt, and I am sure that she had felt it too, at times when she looked at me and then away, and saw that others were too – that I responded to their silence as I did not hers, as I was not comfortable to respond to hers, because she – because I was forever by her side, and any feeling between us was doubled for the close proximity, and the embarrassment of a touchy question or situation might well have lasted a human lifetime.  –A blink in the eye to either of us, but that blink of the eye would still be too long.

It was my duty, as her Protector, to help her banish the Shinma Ranka, but when I saw the way that Miyu had looked at Kei I felt an urge to just leave things as they were.  Or to banish them both together.  Accidents _do happen with intentional regularity, of course.  But that would have been betraying the trust she had in me and boundaries of trust were ones I would not cross.  Never. _

And yet I knew that what she may have been feeling then was just a passing bout of infatuation with a face that hid a narcissistic soul and that she would get over it, but one's heart rarely listens to reason, no matter how logical it might be.  My own face may be locked away behind a mask, but _hers_ was not, and she has not yet learned to control her emotion entirely, or keep it from reaching her face.  Nor have both my eyes been imprisoned behind cold metal, and I can see the way she looks at me when she thinks I am not looking.  Afraid, as I am – afraid to admit, to speak of something we both know, but each needing to hear it to feel – what?  To feel the worth others place on us?  Perhaps, but that doesn't cover what I cannot put into words but only feel.

Tonight is such a time.  We stand by the sea, for she finds it beautifully calming as she always has and I cherish it for my own reasons, my hand resting lightly on her shoulder, my body positioned behind and slightly to the left of hers, as always.  Always, always, always, things remain the same just as they always have and maybe they always will.  

And always the jealousy – as her victims feel her bloodkiss, and pass into eternal dreams that I can't help but hope do not include her.  Again and again she bestows this gift, and though her kiss results in their death I cannot help but be bitter as I watch, always by her side, because it is the kiss itself that I want from her, the kiss which she has only given once – once to bond, but never to maintain.  And then… it was not intentional, it was not an act of love, it was reflex, it was instinct.  That… is somewhat distant, with no meaning except _this is what brought us together which is in itself a wonderful thing, but 'twould be better if added to that kiss was another that said, __and this is what kept us that way._

I stare out over her head, lost in thought, and she twists slightly under my hand to face me.  From the lowers of my eyes I see her own, unearthly golden orbs in her pallid face, their gilt flow interrupted by the shadowy strands of her hair, and their expression is clear – she wants what I want, but is afraid to ask.  Afraid to admit that she wants this, she needs this, because some insidious strand of nastiness present in everyone whispers the things that make her doubt herself – what if he doesn't want it, what if I am being too forward, what if what if what if.  It is these what-ifs that keep us both from admitting what we feel.  It is those what-ifs that keep us apart.  Afraid.

It's almost surprising that two such as we, who fight daily for our lives – against our own kinds, even! – would be afraid to admit love, but the physicalities are harder to deny because they are there, in your eyesight, always present, and they pose the immediate threat.  The emotion is always there, but though it is closer in proximity than the physical it is seemingly more distant in possibility.  Because while failure in defeating a physical threat brings a certain consequence, no one knows what admission of an emotion might bring, whether a similar admission or a withdrawal.  

And it's not just the immediate consequences that we worry about, but those long-term.  She must return me to Darkness in order to lift the seal on herself, and also (we have assumed) on me.  Admitting that I love her and she loves me would make that love more real.  Harder to let go of. 

So it is an eternal cycle; what of her, what of me, what of us, and what afterwards?  Do we know?  Do we want to know?

You can't live without having first known love.  Because it is not until that love is present that you know what life is about.  What it is _really_ about, not the trivialities that appear to be its content.  It is love that makes you value every day.  It is love that makes you live, to know what you are living for.  To know there's a reason that you live.  And until you love you cannot live.

Until we admit that we love, we cannot live.

I still maintain the façade of looking outwards while just looking at her, and I think she knows, but because she is able to trace the paths of my eyes to the opposite horizon she is able to tell her brain that I am looking away from her and so it is okay – and so she can look at me and let her passion show, because she tells herself I do not see.  –I see.  I see her golden eyes trace the outlines of my mask and focus long and longingly on the slit that reveals a slight bit of my eye, the window to my soul.  She focuses her two visible eyes on my one, and keeps them that way – and I want to acknowledge – and – 

And why not?  The way to defeat fear is to face it.

And I abandon the pretense of looking elsewhere and look at her, unmistakably her, and only her.  She gasps slightly, seeing that unblinking red orb focusing into her two of gold, and embarrassedly looks down; but my white clawed hand catches her chin and raises it up.  And though there have never been spoken words since we Bonded, we each know what the other is thinking – 

_There's no need to pretend anymore, Miyu._

_L…Larva, I –_

_Shhh__.__  My smallest finger reaches over her chin to overlap and intersect her small red mouth; the universal gesture for silence.  She nods; she understands.  _I know.__

_But… how…___

_Because you show it in everything you do.  Everything you are._

_…Larva…_

My finger presses harder against her rosebud lips, bidding her silence once more.  The nail cuts into her lip, and a trickle of blood seeps out; blood we share.  Blood the color of her lips and of my nail; blood that drips onto our collective skin and dyes it with the fluid that caused this bond, and the mix of it that is its signification.  

Slowly, slowly, uncertain as ever we were and may ever be, her hand reaches out to touch the ends of black fabric which covers my head, and she draws it back, hesitant, timid, to reveal the clear unbroken skin of my neck.  She can hear my heart beat faster and my finger draws slowly away from her mouth; she reaches out with her tongue a bare moment to connect with my white-skinned hand before it reluctantly relinquishes its connection with her and licks the droplets of her blood off.  One sharp breath – her small tongue against my skin, not altogether catlike in its texture but not altogether human either, but smooth and rough at the same time, and then her lips move to the neck which looks almost translucent in the moonless midnight.  And they do not rest there, but flare backward, and then her fangs pierce the skin – tentative, timorous, and first she asks, _A-all right? _and waits for my assent – willingly given, immediately given.  The blood flows from the wound as her tongue moves over my throat to lap it away, and I yield to my own temptation and touch another long finger to her throat, throbbing as she swallows, and reclaim some of the blood as mine.   Her forehead leans against my neck, which curves downward to let my own forehead rest on her crown.  The blood transfer continues – draining from one, draining from the other, but not draining truly but rather borrowing, because it is returned.  It is always returned.

We share this, if not a true kiss, because my mouth is sealed behind cold steel lips and cannot break away.  

But we share it out of love.

Finally admitted.

And the consequences can wait.  Because now we feel it.  

Because now we live it.

Because now it is truly now.  Because now we see why we live and why we do not want to die.  And at last we feel it… and now… 

Now we live.

_…you went and saved the best for last…_


End file.
